


The City in Dust

by darkmoonvoid



Category: Vampire Hunter D, Vampire Hunter D (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Gothic, Natural Disasters, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Vampire Hunters, Volcano
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmoonvoid/pseuds/darkmoonvoid
Summary: Summary: A phantom from D’s youth summons him to hunt down an unaccounted for Noble, and to break a dimensional loop where the Nobility thrive in an endless hedonistic dream, untouched by the destructive fate that D himself condemned the Nobility to suffer.Mature content. Violence. Gore. Cursing. Adult themes. Likely nothing to smutty. Platonic relationships. OC. Angst/Horror
Relationships: D (Vampire Hunter D)/Original Female Character(s), platonic - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	1. The Ember Wreathed Phantom

_“ Under the mountain, a golden fountain. Were you praying at the Lares shrine?” - Cities in Dust, Siouxsie and the Banshees_

* * *

  
  


Deep within the barren Southern outskirts of the Frontier, nothing more than smouldering ash occupied the land. For over 400 miles this deathly wasteland stretched the clouds of ash cloaking out sunlight. For thousands of years the chain of volcanoes that naturally occurred on this coastline erupted relentlessly. Dominating the bleak landscape rose the shattered slopes of a once majestic mountain. Like all the other volcanoes in this chain, it had long blasted away its outer shell. Only the jagged remains of its burning caldera remained now, plumes of ash roiled from its vents, thick ropes of lava arched upward in fiery claws and surged down the slopes in slow, viscous rivers. 

Nothing grew within the grey shrouded wasteland, the land so sterilized even the most extremophile organism couldn’t thrive. The clouds teamed a leaden black, and erupted in sparks of malevolent orange lighting. Even the Nobility had surrendered this land to the mercy of relentless volcanism, once the curse of entropy crept within their weather controllers' nature swiftly reclaimed her fiery reign. 

D did not travel here willingly, yet all the same he spurred his wheezing cyborg horse to a steady trot. The ash and embers cared not for the majestic face and form he possessed, ash rained copiously down on the wide brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes, streaked his pale face and gathered in mounds across his black clothing. He kept a faded black scarf wound tightly about his nose and mouth, his steely grey eyes surveyed the landscape without emotion. Once a sprawling Noble metropolis lay here, now only a few dark jagged spires of crumbled towers and manors remained, the ruins clutching at the sky like skeletonized fingers. 

Avella...millennia has passed since D traversed this land. A land in which he’d once been called Lord…

The icy glare in his eyes gleamed brighter, washing away the memories of the pristine streets, the lavish balls, blood flowing as freely as wine for his transient guests.

D slowed his horse as he approached the majestic edge of a cliff overlooking a turbulent sapphire ocean, swirling with whirlpools. A stream of vivid lava gathered momentum as it surged off the cliff and plunged into the sea, which consumed it eagerly. Vast pillars of steam encircled the vista of ocean, fire and ash. He dismounted slowly, his ankles sinking into the fine ash. It was here his contact had begged to meet him, and while his eyes saw nothing but the raw power of nature, his senses told him there was a presence nearby. One that could not stand here physically. If he relaxed his eyes and stretched out with his preternatural senses, he could sense her. The phantom of a young woman stood beside him, her white dress in decaying tatters, her black hair streaming out several feet behind her. Her face was cast low, such that D couldn’t not see her features. There were manacles on her wrists leading down to thin silver chains that dragged some distance in the ash before fading into nothingness. 

“Are you the Hunter? The one I called to through dreams?” she whispered,

her voice almost lost in the whipping gales of wind. 

“I am D.” he said succently. 

Her face still cast low, as if entranced by the sea and oblivious to the Hunter. “Then it really is you...My Lord, I beg of you, please kill my father. Duke Jeren of Avella. And then kill me.” 

D trained his senses to bring the phantom woman more fully into existence. He could see the pallor of her skin, stark white yet not quite the skin of a pure blooded noble. Duke Jeren had once been a classic example of common Nobility before the inevitable collapse of their civilization, a hungering leech that feasted voraciously and bedded vampire and human alike. He possessed many heirs and bastard children, D could only surmise this maiden to be later, she possessed the aura of a dhampir...at least she did in this manifestation. 

“Duke Jeren is unaccounted for, but assumed dead. The city of Avella is long destroyed, its Nobility burned to ash . It was buried in the eruption of Mt. Filianore. It was the irrevocable fate of the city. I know, because I was it’s reigning Lord. You need to let go….” D divulged, typically he never would have revealed such information to a stranger, yet this clearly had to be a ghost attached to the memory of this ruin. “ You're already dead. I sense no reason to kill you again.” 

She shook her head, but didn’t raise her face to regard him. “It’s an illusion..a lie, just like me. In our final hour the Sacred Ancestor answered the Noblities prayers and offered my father an alternative to save Avella, and I was the sacrifice left on the altar . You will soon see...Avella still thrives, the blood still stains the streets, the vampires forever dance and feast in the palace...do you think you can undo such an injustice, Lord D? Can you bring the truth you deemed best for us?”

“It’s just D now. I can kill the Duke, but if I must cross a dimensional barrier as I suspect, then my rate is significantly higher...not something a dhampir of your era could typically afford.” He stated matter of factly. Ages ago, back when the Nobility still gathered in cities; dhampir were treated lower than vermin by each side of their bloodline. In his youth D had been privileged enough to pass as a vampire, but as the Earth passed again into human hands that privilege decayed into a curse which he solemnly accepted. 

“I don’t have money, but I do possess something I believe would be of great interest to you.” The phantom still didn’t move to face him, perhaps she could not recall her face. She held out her hand to reveal a necklace on a delicate golden chain, it possessed a heart shaped crystal pendant and locked within the stone by meticulous crafting was a lock of shimmering black hair. 

Almost involuntarily a surge of lounging and anguish gripped D, memories so distant he could just barely make any cognitive sense of them….he just recalled the warmth of an embrace, the gentle beating of a heart, his own hands knotting in that black hair….it was his mother’s hair. 

Despite his inward emotion D’s face remained unchanged to the phantom. His Left Hand however gave a rasping gasp, “Holy shit!” 

“I steal ruthlessly from the Nobles that enslave me. Even from the Sacred Ancestor. I believe this is a lock of hair from his unrequited beloved, Mina the Fair. It’s easy to underestimate a slave, I took it directly from his neck. If the rumors of your lineage are true, then this relic should be of value to you, Lord D Tepes.”

“That name is long dead.” he seethed maliciously, yet the phantom didn’t appear to react. 

Slowly D reached out in hopes of touching the crystal pendant, in desperation to touch his mother’s tresses again even if locked away in crystal but his hands phased directly though the phantom. She shook her head, “You’ll need to find me...” A swirl of burning ash and embers danced across the shoreline, and within it the phantom woman disappeared. 

D raised his cape to shield his face further from the choking ash. His breathing was becoming more labored, ash filled his lungs...yet this wasn’t enough to kill him. Nobles typically didn’t die from asphyxiation...respiration aided their bodies in function but was secondary to the heart and brain. That was what made the eruption of Mt. Filianore so profound. Nobles had inexplicably died beneath its crush of ash, mud, heat, and gas. Where immortals should have clawed their way from the crushing weight of nature...they instead became ash themselves. 

He turned to his cyborg horse, but was hardly shocked to find it laying in the ash, it’s legs curled in the air and head gasping desperately for oxygen. It wasn’t the most sturdy of models, more organic than D preferred his horses but there was nothing to be done about it now. He walked toward the city ruins, the embers clawing away at the leather of his boots, and gnawing at the edges of his cape . 

“Hey…..how do ya suppose we should get in...I can open a sealed dimension, that’s small fry work, but there are always cracks I can claw into. Come on, you sense it too. This ruin is dead space, literally, it’s a void. Nothing for me to unlock.” a hoarse voice said from the vicinity of his left hand. 

“Just as I designed it to be, but I am a Hunter, not a physicist. I must have made an error. And something else is very wrong. I don’t sense any bodies.” D replied to his parasitic left hand. 

“Bodies? Why wouldn’t there be any….that was thousands of years ago, buried in lava. Nobles usually fall to dust when they die.”

“No, that's incorrect. The minor eruptions occurring now are spilling lava into the seaward slope, but there are no lava beds on this side. When Mt. Filianore first erupted violently, it was a Plinian eruption. Ash, debris and pyroclastic flows killed this city. The Nobles might leave only hair behind but there countless human and dhampir slaves that would have left substantial evidence buried deeply. I cannot sense any bodies or hair, just ash.”

D turned his steely gaze up to a spiraling tower of obsidian carved with exquisite gothic style architecture, it’s arched windows were shattered, the rooftop partially collapsed. Ages ago the Sacred Ancestor held a prisoner there; a woman of such alluring beauty that he couldn’t not resist. The faintest hint of emotion betrayed the Hunter’s face, a furrow of his brow and lowering of his cold eyes that indicated great sorrow. 

“Hey….what the…” the wizened voice from his left hand remarked. Almost lost in the rain of ash and clouds of smoke something was shimmering in the air. To all others they would have dismissed it as heat from the smouldering landscape, but the Hunter could faintly see a glimmer past the distortion. A glimpse into a pristine city street; the passing of vehicles and cyborg horse drawn carriages. “Why the hell couldn’t I sense that before?” the Left Hand snapped in annoyance. 

“It shouldn’t be here. I designed this barrier, granted I was much younger and inexperienced. It was meant to be impermeable, to keep the populus adherent to their fate.” D mused aloud, and raised his left hand toward the rend in the fabric of spacetime.

“Oh….I see. Well, lookee here! This isn’t natural entropy of a sealed dimension...this was a deliberate sabotage. The fabric doesn’t mend because it’s creator designed this slash. Which only means...you made a fuck up or someone with your blood slashed though...had to have been Drac…” 

D clinched his hand into a brutal fist to stifle the name. The volcano in its dying throes was the only witness to D’s briefly agonized expression. The Hunter could not admit it even to himself, but each time he encountered... _him_...D’s first urge was to flee...not particularly in cowardice, as he’d overpowered his maker every time they briefly battled. No...it was merely dread. The crushing certainty that in this battle he would learn more of his father's corruption and wounds upon the innocent.

But not a sliver of visible emotion passed his from as he reached out to touch the tear in space time. The jagged slash he’d never authorized, the product of the Sacred Ancestor unrelenting malice. The Hunter jerked backward when something lurched outward and grasped him, a thin female hand with a manicaled wrist pulled him through with such force even he was powerless to keep his feet tethered to the shifting ash bed. A wild sensation of vertigo assaulted his senses, but he was keenly aware of what the frayed gash in reality revealed to him as he was ripped though. 

The events that were supposed to have occurred...the destruction of Avella beneath a hail of pumice, ash, and pyroclastic surges….it happened in reverse, days of violent stifling eruptions compressed into a skin as thin as that of a bubble. D was not immune to its agony either...his lungs clogged with ash, his skin roiled, heat sundered his flesh and roasted his organs...but only for a brief instant. In the next moment D’s was plunged unceremoniously onto the flagstone streets. As attested by his Hunter nature he rolled swiftly to regain his footing and tense into a spring, his right hand free should he have need of his sword. Slowly D rose to stand but his hand remained tensed, he was still panting heavily, as if suffocating...but there were no wounds in his flesh nor any trace of volcanic debris covering his form. He allowed himself to slowly glance about his surroundings, lingering a bit longer on each detail that he ordinarily would have. His consciousness was suffused with nostalgia, each stained glass window, arched doorway, gilded curls of filigree, the sweeping arms of flying buttresses, the jagged spires jutting from the roofs of colossal manors. An artificial night forever enclosed the Noble city of Avella, the streets smelled faintly of blood and wine. 

D became aware that he too was vastly changed, his frayed black clothing and weathered armor was replaced with an immaculate red crimson overcoat, the cape around his shoulders crafted of exquisite dragon leather, his trousers and boots were a deep midnight black and sewn of soft leather. His traveler's hat was gone, and he wore his thick hair tied back loosely, adorned with jewels and beads. He recognized the diamonds, rubies and sapphire rings on his fingers...he recalled wearing this exact outfit to a grand ball hours before Mt. Filianore erupted. He’d hosted it after all, encouraging the Nobility to accept their impending deaths, a final extravagance of debauchery before the rule of nature claimed even the near immortal. They were given no choice by Lord D. 

“What the hell...D, where the fuck are we!” his Left Hand bulged from his palm to form a face. 

“We are in Avella, this must be shortly before the festivities I hosted before the eruption of Mt. Filianore, I lured the most powerful subjects here, and from my chambers I sealed them into this reality where they could not escape. None should've survived.” 

“Wow….holy shit. We weren’t together then, so this is new to me! Let me look around!” the small voice begged and while D busied himself in making sure he still possessed his weapons he allowed the Left Hand to glance about. An elegant metropolis sprawled before the Hunter, towers and spires rising from each stone and steel structure. Here and there flickered the glow of electric lights but not so much as to appear garish. Towering 14,000 feet above it all were the pristine slopes of Mt. Filianore, untouched by the eruption that would tear it asunder. The snowy slopes were so peaceful, its near perfectly symmetrical conical peak didn’t even betray a hint of vapor to give evidence to the hell mounting in its magma chamber.

D’s palace was perched atop a large rolling hill, only a few miles from the foothills of the mountain and cut an imposing obsidian form even in the maze of spires and peaks that constituted Noble architecture. His palace was a cluster of 13 whimsical towers, each one inlaid with a dramatic stained glass window depicting momentous moments in Earth’s history, the colors brought to life by diamond chandlers. The building of the Great Pyramids...The Fall of Pompeii...The Black Plague….the Crusades...The War of the Roses...The Renaissance...The Conquest of the New World… the Industrial Revolution… World War 1, World War II, the first nuclear bomb...the first human on the Moon...each a scene of humanity displayed in delicate panes of glass. The 13th and final one showed only the Sacred Ancestor, sitting regally in his throne, rising behind him were 13 world leaders after the Apocalypse of 1999, each one impaled by stakes. D’s mein grew steely in its expression, as though he couldn’t help but to regard the Sacred Ancestor’s face with hatred.

**_Shatter..._ **he thought, summoning all his maliciousness. An instant later a hairline fracture appeared on the Great Ones face...a face that so mirrored his own. A moment later the earth shuttered, a tremor born of Mt. Filianore, stirring from her slumber. The cracked pane rattled loose and came shattering down to the ground, once the earthquake ceased a few jagged fragments remained of the window. 

“Hey...when did you learn that shatter trick?” the Left Hand muttered in astonishment. 

“Simple willpower. Still inefficient for battle however. Perhaps in a few thousand years it will manifest stronger.” 

A few Noble voices raised a shout as the earthquake rattled the chandeliers, but soon enough they dismissed it, as they had all the other warnings from Filianore. 

D secured his long sword across his back, and assured that his wooden needles were within his overcoat pocket. In the past he’d carried a sword at his hip, yet it was more ornate than it was functional. It had taken him some time before he fully mastered the art of the blade, not just in how to fight with it but how to live by it. It was something not taught within any luxury skill class. He moved closer to his palace, lingering at a drawbridge crossing the moat. Streams of Nobility pressed past him without a second glance. The hesitation within the Hunter was that of a bitter nostalgia…this sentencing of Avella had been one of the pivotal moments before he abandoned the Nobility. He held no desire to see these memories again, but he could take comfort in the fact that by this time his mother was already lost. Seeing her again might well shatter his sanity. 

He felt a sudden wave of heat, in a shimmer the ember wreathed phantom manifested once again, her hair sliding forward to veil her face, the silver chains twisted around her waist. “Please, my Lord….let Avella die. Free us…” 

“Very well, I’ll need to find what the Sacred Ancestor has done and unravel it. May I have your name?”

The phantom shook her head, yet not in refusal...more like her name was not something she was able to recall, like her face hidden behind her hair. “I am just the sacrifice. Nothing more. It all began on this night…”

D swayed on his feet as a sharp aftershock radiated across the city. The phantom again faded, leaving nothing more than faintly gleaming embers in her wake. 

D grasped one of the embers in his left hand, the spark disappeared into his palm. “Hmm...that’s weird. That was warm...the real thing. That woman, I don’t think she’s a ghost.” the hoarse voice informed him. “Who is she? She knows your lineage, that’s for damn sure.”

“Perhaps I’ll recall her in time. She hasn’t revealed enough of herself for me to find any memory of her. But it seems our goals are aligned. She wishes to let this city burn and suffocate, and I don’t regret the choices I made here. It seems I shall have to make them again and ensure they meet a proper conclusion. This loop was never my doing. This was meant to be a prison.” D said, and straightened his coat and cape before entering his palace. 

* * *


	2. Black Rose and Black Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sacred Ancestor enters the doomed city, whilst D reflects upon the events that lead to its demise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song mentioned within the story is “Face to Face” by Siouxsie and the Banshees. All credit goes to them.

“ _Once I held the rarest rose that ever deigned to bloom. Cruel winter chilled the bud and stole my flower too soon.” - Lovesong for a Vampire, Annie Lennox_

**7,095 AD**

At the foot of a lonely ornate tower within the heart of Avella, a solitary figure knelt. He was donned in resplendent red velvet, his head bowed low. In the false eternal moonlight one might have glanced a blood tinged tear trickling down his sallow cheeks. A sight that would have repulsed the Nobility. There was a mangiencent staircase ramping up to the sealed door of the tower; yet the man didn’t dare to trod upward. Instead he left a single black petaled rose upon the first marble step, and bowed his head as if in prayer, or perhaps a plea for forgiveness. He didn’t seem to notice the rose withering and shedding its petals the moment it left his hand. The sound of laughing and singing Nobles passed him by for many minutes without care before the crimson figure rose, brushing the trail of bloody tears from his cheeks and lightly licking the precious blood from his fingers.

“Mina…” he uttered the name past the lump of sorrow lodged in his throat. “Why couldn’t you have just accepted me? Me who guided humans from the darkness of their own failures and into a daylight I cannot tolerate? I asked who so little of you...just your womb to bear us a child worthy of my intellect and your spirit!” the figure intoned with the passion of a bereaved poet. He shut his eyes to stem the flow of further blood tears.

The agony of his beloved’s suicide rended the Sacred Ancestor deeper than any blade, any stake, any ray of sunlight and any flame. Only 3 years had passed, years that should have been the blink of an eye for a Noble, yet years that passed for him as if he were impaled upon a stake, the weight of his own body killing him slowly. He could hardly imagine his son’s pain...Mina loved D with devotion that she refused to show the father of her child. It was clear enough to the Sacred Ancestor that the doom hanging before Avella was directly attributed to D’s grief...afterall, this immaculate tower was one of the many prisons Mina had been forced to endure, her life stretched eons past her natural span. And one of the many prisons D had known as well.

“I am half tempted just to let it happen…” the Sacred Ancestor whispered only to the memory of his beloved, one thin, claw-like hand clutching the crystal necklace round his throat. “To press the message to my people that we are but transient guests, felled even by nature. But…it’s all unraveling so fast...the OSB wars, the insurrections and coupes...I cannot lose power just yet, my dear Mina. Only the memory of your mercy can help me convey that message to our son.”

The Sacred Ancestor turned away from the lonely tower and withering black rose. He had many forms to assume that were instantly recognized by the populus. This one was not one of them...this form he’d shifted into was the face of an ancient war lord, in fact one he’d possessed millenia ago. The Sacred Ancestor discovered his ability to transfer his consciousness to new hosts when humans were still mating with Neanderthals. At this moment he possessed a thin, sallow face with sunken cheeks, thick brows, a sharp nose, thick mustache and flowing brown hair unbound past his shoulders. This was the face of Vlad Tepes III, Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia, sometimes known as Dracula. Few alive now would recognize it. The Sacred Ancestor had possessed many before Vlad; but in this flesh he’d found a way to assimilate into humanity. To live as if human...to lead humans as if he were them. He learned the art of conquest, ruling, torture and fear. Yes, the guise of Vlad Tepes served him so well he kept the name, as he had none before. His studies proved he was the first vampire, and thus had no given name.

The Sacred Ancestor followed the crowd of Nobility flocking to D’s foreboding palace. His one success was not a fool, as was evidenced by the history scenes in the vast windows. This guise was unlikely to pass by D undetected, but this was of little concern to the Sacred Ancestor. Many times they had crossed paths. In time, they would battle, a fight that might last for millennia...but that battle would not start this night. Tonight he was concerned merely with the subjects of his rule. The ballroom was brimming with thousands of Nobility, from the commoner to the barons, viscounts, and dukes. Thousands of tapered candles glowed on every table and sconce; the finest wines, vintages thousands of years old were poured copiously, dancers of dazzling beauty swayed in near see through dresses, and enslaved human women and men bared their throats for the fangs of the Nobility. They danced elegantly, feasted, drank, laughed, smoked and wept. Upon a modest iron wood carved throne the gloriously impassive face of D shimmered in the candle light, as motionless and flawless as a marble sculpture. The Sacred Ancestor felt his undead heart jolt upon gazing on him, as it always did as he regarded the sum of his greatest dreams. And yet on nights like this he wondered if he’d been misguided, in undertaking the ruthless project of creating a perfect being of human and Noble blood had been foolish. Had he focused too much energy to this vain cause, a worthy heir? If he’d spend as much time with his people as he did in the labs perhaps they wouldn’t be in decline. If D noted the Sacred Ancestors presence; he made no acknowledgement of it. He merely sat calmly and immobile on his throne, his eyes hardly even moving.

Dracula ascended a mahogany staircase to find Duke Jeren; not exactly the most beloved Noble by the human and dhampir’s citizens. For a time Jeren had been Lord of this land until a disagreement with the overseer of the sector demoted him and Dracula ordered his son to oversee the thriving city. The entropy hadn’t yet touched this gleaming port city that served as haven from the horrors of the inhospitable ocean. It seemed as if in an instant the imminent collapse of the Nobility manifested like a cancer. Each of his efforts to excise it were in vain, and now, his own son embraced the collapse of the Nobility.

The Duke Jeren was an unnaturally pale figure that was nigh translucent; every rudimentary organ was visible though his sheath of skin. He wasn’t clad in a stitch of clothing nor in any jewels, his face no longer had a recognizable Noble structure. Rather it was a protruding reptilian snout, his Noble fangs jutted a few inches longer than the smaller canines crammed in his mouth. From his back jutted a thin blue membrane that pooled at his clawed feet.

“ _Duke Jeren, we must speak._ ” bid Dracula silently, probing the thoughts of the monstrous reptilian man, and divulging his true identity to the beast. The Duke almost sank down to his knees, but Dracula swiftly suppressed the thought, froze his very neurons and reversed their pathways. “ _Do not bow. Do not speak of this to anyone else, not even to Lord D. I have vanished from the public eye for my own reasons, it would be unfortunate and unpleasant if you were to reveal my presence.”_

Of his free will the Duke bowed his reptilian head; jagged ram like horns jutted from the translucent skin. The Duke of Avella hadn’t always possessed this striking monstrous form, rather he’d begged the sacred Ancestor to help him in assuming it to have better control over his sorcery. Knowing full well it would cripple the Noble, the Sacred Ancestor obliged. Afterall the Duke didn’t foresee a day when he would have to fight to keep his titles. The Sacred Ancestor didn’t even detect resentment in his thoughts regarding his demotion, he was far too consumed by the allure of sorcery.

“My….friend….you must help us!” the Duke begged. “Lord D….that thing of yours means to destroy us all!”

A lurid blood light burned in Dracula’s eyes, “You shall refer to my success by his title!” he hissed using his voice in the thick, steely voice of Vlad Tepes.

“Forgive me, my...my friend! But you must know...what Lord D is planning! He has forbidden us to leave; if we try to leave the insurrectionists will tear us apart. When the mountain erupts, we shall burn or drown!”

The Sacred Ancestor furrowed a heavy brow, had he ever subjected a Noble to experience a full volcanic eruption? He’d dropped them into lava, the strong Nobles survived but were horribly disfigured, and weakened. But few volcanic eruptions were strictly lava flows, in the age of humans they were capable of horrific destruction in multiple forms.

“Tell me all you know.” the Sacred Ancestor commanded.

* * *

_**Two Months Prior** _

_Avella curled around the foothills of Mt Filanore gracefully and blissfully ignorant of the fire burning within its chamber. For thousands of years the weather controller had served to eliminate volcanism, and also to filter the sun from the sky, leaving the city of Nobility cast forever into a pristine night. Upon taking up Lordship of the luxurious city, D noted instantly that the weather controller was deeply taxed, constantly on the verge of failure. With the species in steady decline there were no meteorological techs left in which to repair it, but in truth D made little effort to find one. He was faced with two options….to either switch off the sunlight filters and reverte all power to taming the volcanism, or to switch off the volcanism control and grant Avella its ethereal twilight. He didn’t consult the Council or Overseer as to his choice, there was nothing to discuss. Within three years the magma chamber of Mt Filianore filled. On the city edge that hugged the sea, the first awakening occurred. The populus on the coast was much smaller, the Nobility abhorred the water but were fond of the serene ocean side view. After all, the weather controllers had long tamed the sea._

_Then one morning that was never truly morning, a soft rumble thundered from Mt Filianore, and a small mushroom shaped cloud of ash gushed from a sudden crack in the seaward side of the mountain. The Nobles took little notice of it, some pointed it out and photographed it as a curiosity on their communication devices. But within 10 minutes a hundred Nobles would experience a phenomenon unprecedented in their history. The unsightly column of ash curled into the air and slowly began to fade , but the minor eruption had released tremendous heat, and displaced chunks of land. Enough heat welled from its vents to melt the artificially placed glacial ice along its seaward slopes. In just ten minutes a vast wave of melted ice, mud, rocks, boulders and ash flowed in a hideous grey torrent down the slopes, directly in the path of the outskirts of Avella. The savage flood, called a lahar, was so swift and so fierce that even the Nobles capable of fleeing at speeds of Mach 1, were utterly helpless. It was a tsunami of boiling glacial ice, mud and debris that enclosed them and toppled their manors and castles... the Nobility were helpless in running water.The moment the smallest drop touched their flesh they became paralyized…. and then pulverized in the rush of stone and wood debris caught in the muddy flows. Those not pulverized or bruised in debris drowned swiftly, as there were records of Nobles drowning in waist deep water. For all their power and glory, 100 Nobles were destroyed._

_This was merely a glancing blow to Avella, most of the lahar had flowed into the ocean. The eruption was merely a precursor. Now daily earthquakes descended on the city, anti Nobility terrorist groups surrounded the city to strike down any Noble that dared to flee, and Lord D refused to mount a defense nor to assure the populus he could mitigate the threat of Filianore._

_He spoke but one sentence….”We are but transient guests.”_

* * *

_**12,095 AD** _

D effortlessly slipped back into memory, recalling his every action, every step and movement from this night 5,000 years ago. With measured steps he assumed his place at the iron wood carved throne, and regarded the sight of 4,000 Nobles filling his former palace without emotion. Perhaps more steel and disinterest filled his gaze now after 5,000 years. He needed to gage the situation carefully; he knew very well what would happen if he engaged the Duke in combat without knowing how the Sacred Ancestor had marred the dimensional trap. It would be a brief battle, one that D doubted he would even take a wound, completely worthless. The pale monstrous Duke was a fragile thing; a beast born in the archives of science and mysticism, subsisted on the blood of thousands of maidens...and an unremarkable Noble in the annals of history. But killing him now would only result in his temporary death. D needed to study the cogs of his creation carefully. To kill the Duke, to kill the woman as she requested, to condemn all of Avalla to their fate he would need to fix the error first. For now the Hunter sat silently, a predator gauging his prey, his intentions as unchanged as the first time he’d lived these moments. Perhaps he’d made the choices here in grief, still reeling from the loss of his mother. Yet the grief had not abated, his resolve as unbroken as his prowess on the battlefield.

A flicker of embers caught his eye, a soft firefly dance of sparks twirled around one of the enslaved dancers on raised stages. For the first time D truly gazed upon the one undoubtedly connected to the ember wreathed phantom. In life the dhampir woman was quite stunning, enough to hold D’s icy gaze a bit longer than he typically beheld the women he met in his journeys. She defied the typical standards of dhampir women. She possessed pallid skin, and obsidian tresses that fell to her ankles, these features were common; but it was the rest of her form that made her quite unique. She’d stopped aging at perhaps 25, long enough to grant her an air of maturity, of womanhood rather than helpless maiden. Rather than hourglass curves she possessed a rail thin figure, and she didn’t have the overly ample bosom most women were bred for. In the manner of all the enslaved females she wore a sheer black dress that left her near flat chest bared for the audience, but while her chest wasn’t the standard for women, her face possessed a husky maturity that only brightened her allure. Her eyes were the same shade of emeralds as the jewels that gleamed on D’s hand. Her lips were painted bright red with a prominent cupid’s bow. Black feathers accented her sheer veils of clothing, their detail so exquisite they could not have been synthetic. A delicate cloak of raven feathers clung to her sleeves and dragged softly across the floor. The way she swayed, twirled and turned in her movements she could well have been a mythical black bird swirling on the currents of air. For a moment a shower of sparks twirled around her before the phantom presence disappeared, leaving only the source.

D pondered on her appearance; he did not know how Duke Jeren appeared before drastically changing his form, but her features reminded him of another woman who fell slave to the Nobility...and vaguely of his mother, as they possessed the same style of hair.

D recalled his next movements well, yet he’d not dwelled upon them for many millennia. He rose from the carved throne and met the dark haired woman’s eyes. Her dance faltered, her feathers drooped, an expression of both astonishment and fear crossed her face. D held out his hand in an undoubted invitation. The music changed in that moment, or rather the soft symphonies of the quartets and pianists were drowned out by the start of an ancient song blaring to life over the hundreds of loudspeakers built within the ballroom. The Nobles in attendance figuratively or literally grasped their pearls at the sound of the mortal song assaulting their ears, but their shock was somewhat mollified at the sight of the impassive Lord rising the walk among them, his marble chiseled features gleaming in candle light, every Noble regardless of gender felt a shudder of lust ache in their lips and in their loins. And yet the slave dancer adorned in feathers hesitated to take his immense hand with its sharp nails lacquered in black polish. Her eyes burned not with passion….but with anger….perhaps even hatred. He did not miss the faint red light glowing within her pupils. D knew this expression to be the natural hate and aggression that existed between dhampirs. Still he insisted without words, knowing full well the voice of the mortal singer, Siouxsie Sioux, would urge the dancer to accept.

_Face to Face, my lovely foe. Mouth to Mouth, raining heavens blows._

Solemnly the dancer took his hand, and with all the passion of a marionette doll wound her thin arms around his muscular form and moved slowly with the rhythm. The woman’s eyes were lowered, deftly avoiding his steely gaze. D didn’t mind her apparent lack of attraction to him, but he could feel the tension locked within her muscles “I don’t intend to harm you, nor to bite you. This is just a show for the Nobility.”

“I know…” the woman answered, still not gazing at him. “I quite like this song...but I care not for the primal feelings your visage stir within me. How many millennia of research did the Sacred Ancestor pour into creating that flawless face of yours? Dedication he could have poured into the wars with the OSB...into forming a true allegence with humans rather than raping maidens, and slaughtering their infants....all for you?”

D’s left hand gave a low whistle, “Damn...just who the hell is this girl? She must have one hell of death wish!” The dancer's eyes flitted toward the source of the hoarse voice, her lips parted in astonishment, but she said nothing. Words that should have stirred the Hunter were met only with a long moment of solemn silence. Only another rumbling aftershock that caused the diamond chandelier to sway perilously beneath them elicited an answer. “You speak the truth. But I don’t walk the path of the Sacred Ancestor, and will atone for the sins of my creation, beginning with this city.”’

The music was reaching a passionate crescendo. Immersed within the luxuries of Avella, D could recall his youth surrounded by both the ancient culture of the humans and the decadence of the Nobility. For a few thousand years he collected every dusty record of mortal music, and memorabilia and videos that survived the apocalypse. This song was from one of his favorite mortal artists, it’s sensual lyrics welling nostalgic memories the rigors of battle had long since erased.

_You never can win. It’s the state I am in. This danger thrills and my conflict kills. They say follow your heart…_

“Avella” D announced to his subjects. “Tonight we shall dance and indulge one last time! Feast as if you will never know another night, for even the stars are not immortal!” D proclaimed in a booming voice that rang louder than crystal clattering in the aftershock. He fell down over the dancers neck and drove his fangs into her pulsating carotid artery...or at least that was the illusion he portrayed. A portion of his hair had fallen from its lose tie and swooped forward to hide his face from the Nobility as D appeared to partake of blood, a sight none could recall ever occurring...yet behind the dark veil D’s fangs tore viciously at his own lip; his lips pressed against her neck but his fangs did not touch her flesh. It was not a kiss he’d inflicted upon her, merely a trickle of his own blood. His telekinetic prowess over blood caused the rivulets to form in the shape of two pinprick fang marks upon her neck. The woman, knowing her part in this charade, fell limply into his arms but didn’t swoon into a faint, her expression was enraptured as most woman’s faces would be under his thrall, yet it didn’t lose its fury.

“Do you know why I am here?” he whispered as he steadied her body. The girl tensed, and as swift as glass in an earthquake her steely expression cracked. She wept softly, pressing her face into the velvet sleeve of his shoulder as if in shame of her tears.

“What year is it outside this prison?”

“12,095 AD”

“For 5,000 years I have danced with you, but you never asked that question...nor did I ever hear your hand taking. You spoke in a loop...like everyone else here, each night you promise to atone, and perform that illusionary kiss, and we part ways. If you're speaking directly to me….then I have finally found you outside this place.”

_To die like this, with a last kiss ,it’s falsehoods flame, it’s a crying shame_.

“You have, I am a Vampire Hunter and you’ve hired me to kill Duke Jeren and yourself, yet I hold doubts you’ve any reason to be killed.” He could smell the blood tinged tears spilling past her eyes.

“In ten minutes I will depart this palace and move toward the foothills of Mt. Filianore, but I won’t make it there unmolested. On Draven street I’ll be attacked by pseudo-vampires. Meet me there, we will have exactly 20 minutes to speak.”

“Very well, but in 40 minutes from now Mt Filianore will erupt.” The dancer unwound from his embrace with haste.

“I can only hope that….I heeded your warnings Lord D, the warnings only the humans and dhampirs took seriously...but I have nowhere to go. The Frontier is unsuited for a lowly dancer, and I already must function as a whore. There is no life for me out there, I wanted to be the first one Filianore claimed.”

She turned away in a flash of feathers, but still the Hunter could smell the tinge of blood and salt that betrayed further tears. “What’s your name?” he inquired, the dancer unheeding of the poignancy of that question coming from the Hunter.

“W-81516, apart from that code I have no name. ” she answered before disappearing in the crowd.

“Damn….” a hoarse voice piped up. “She might be lacking in the tits department, but that’s a unique girl. Don’t get many who would dare insult your pretty face and mention the Sacred Asshole! Would you believe that still isn’t even the real her?”

“I suspected as such, a stronger manifestation but still an illusion ...but I found her chest a welcome change from the norm.” D answered wistfully although it was unclear from his iron tone if he spoke out of defense of the girl or mild humor.

* * *

Upcoming: Ceastus. Red Eyes. Divergence. W-81516. Cloves


End file.
